


Hair

by ObscureReference



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Facial Hair, Fluff, Hair, M/M, Multi, Rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 01:07:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15474144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObscureReference/pseuds/ObscureReference
Summary: Niles grows some stubble, Leo gets caught in the rain, and Odin has his mother's hair.





	Hair

**Author's Note:**

> Something short and sweet that struck me the other day. I was thinking about hair.

“Niles!” Odin shouted. The blob of rumpled dark clothing at the end of the hallway slowed at the sound of its name, and Odin caught up to Niles in mere moments. “Hark, my umbral friend! How goes these last endless nights of separation?” He peered at Niles a bit closer and smiled teasingly. “Rather sleepless, I suspect.”

From sidelong look Niles shot him, Odin gathered that Niles was both very pleased and very tired.

Niles huffed good-naturedly. “You’ve got that right. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t slept a wink since I left the castle.”

“Oh, wow, really?” Odin blinked, momentarily forgetting to keep up the act. Niles had left the castle three days ago. He knocked his arm into Niles’s affectionately. “I told you I should have gone with you.”

“No,” Niles said, shaking his head. Odin more than half expected Niles to teeter on his feet at the movement given how exhausted he looked, but he didn’t. “Like Leo said, it really was a one man job.”

Since Niles had been walking away from the library and in the direction of their chambers, Odin was sure Niles had already given his report to Leo, but Odin couldn’t wait another minute. He _had_ to know.

“So you succeeded then?” he asked. “You have the information we need?”

“Names, numbers, positions,” Niles listed off on his fingers, looking briefly smug. “Yes, Odin. This isn’t my first mission.”

“Yes!” Odin pumped his fist into the air. He celebrated a bit too loudly, if Niles’s tired wince was anything to go by, but he couldn’t help himself. “Of course, I would expect nothing less from Niles, the creeper of shadows, the keeper of secrets, the—"

“Yes, yes,” Niles said. “You can praise me all you want later. Right now I just want to sleep.”

It was a testament to how tired Niles must have been that he didn’t try to turn Odin’s “praising” him into some sort of inuendo.

“Of course,” Odin said, reigning himself in somewhat. “Then I shall make sure you reach the realm of slumber safely.”

“I’m tired, not incapable,” Niles said, but he wasn’t really protesting. They started walking down the corridor back to their bedroom. “Are you planning on reading me a bedtime story or something?”

Odin chuckled at the thought. “Perhaps a sponge bath and a shave while you sleep would be of better service. You are looking quite ragged, friend.”

Niles rolled his shoulder like it ached. If he hadn’t slept in several days, Odin couldn’t imagine he’d been in very many comfortable spots since then either.

“If you’re worried about me getting the sheets dirty,” Niles said, “I assure you they’ve weathered much worse. And if it really bothers you, I can request the sheets be changed later.”

“Such counterfeit words did not grace these lips,” Odin protested. “I merely meant you looked like your weary spirit would benefit from a bit of upkeep.”

Niles eyed him curiously. “You’ve seen me go without a shave before.”

“I have, but it’s been a while,” Odin said. He took in Niles’s unkempt appearance further and spotted a faint splotch of purple amidst the stubble gracing Niles’s throat. Odin squinted. “Oh? What’s this? Have you been back longer than I thought?”

He reached out and tapped his finger against the newly formed hickey just below Niles’s jaw. After only three days of not shaving, the stubble lining Nile’s cheeks was not particularly thick, but it wasn’t sparse either. Odin felt it prickle his finger.

“Leo was quite happy to see me when I went to report to him,” Niles said smugly, slowing to another stop. He placed a hand on his chest, pretending to be hurt. “Here I thought you’d be just as delighted upon my return, and yet you’ve only criticized me so far. How sorely it turns out I was mistaken.”

“Nonsense!” Odin said. “I was under the impression you would have rather rested first and chatted later. But if you wanted to spend some time together now, of course…”

Niles hummed, pretending to think about it. Odin didn’t bother to wait for an answer. There was still no one else in the hallway, and it certainly wasn’t a chore for Odin to dart forward and press his lips against Niles’s.

Stubble grazed and tickled Odin’s cheeks. It was a somewhat unfamiliar sensation, but not an unpleasant one.

“Now that’s more like it,” Niles said as Odin pulled back, sounding pleased.

Odin reached up and touched a still tingling patch of skin on his cheek.

No, he thought. Not unpleasant at all.

“Maybe we can hold off on the shaving until this evening,” he mused. Niles certainly couldn’t sleep _all_ day. “Or even tomorrow.”

Niles instantly honed in on Odin’s interest.

“Oh?” he said. He leaned in, getting his face dangerously close to Odin’s. “I had no idea you were into facial hair. Though it makes sense, considering your inability to grow any yourself.”

“Hey, come on,” Odin protested. “I could grow a beard if I wanted.”

“Sure,” Niles said, much too easily.

Odin rolled his eyes. “Alright, enough of that. I can see now that your exhaustion has rattled your brain. I’ll see you again after your nap.”

“Leaving so soon?” Niles asked, catching Odin around the wrist as Odin tried to pull away. “I thought we weren’t yet finished. What were you just saying about my appearance?”

“I can’t seem to recall anymore,” Odin said. He couldn’t keep himself from smiling, though he did turn his face away to at least keep up the pretense of seriousness. “Something about your visage appearing rather unappealing at the moment.”

Niles hummed loudly as he pressed his and Odin’s cheeks together, shaking his head so his facial hair scraped against Odin’s skin. “That doesn’t sound right.”

“Niles!” Odin squirmed in Niles’s grasp, though not hard enough to actually escape. He could feel the scratches forming on his face already. “My face is going to be all red!”

“Good,” Niles said. He kissed Odin’s temple and rubbed his stubble on Odin’s face some more.

“Everyone will see,” Odin added, though he didn’t quite hate that prospect as much as Leo might have.

“Then you have reason to discuss your interest in facial hair with Leo later.”

“I never said it was an _interest_ ,” Odin said, tilting his face away and feeling Niles rub his face against Odin’s throat instead. “What if I really do shave your face while you sleep tonight? What are you going to do then?”

“I have no problem with that,” Niles said, finally pulling back and giving Odin’s skin some blessed relief. “Less work for me later.”

Niles face was still very close. Odin’s entire face tingled, and he was sure if he looked in a mirror that his skin would looked rather red and raised.

After a moment of Odin simply looking at him—taking in Niles’s tired eyes and smug lips—Niles opened his mouth to speak again. A yawn replaced any words he might have said, however.

“Alright,” Odin said, detangling themselves. “Let’s get you to bed.”

Niles looked like he wanted to comment and instead found himself again. Odin laughed, pleasantly aware of his beard burn, and pushed Niles down the hall.

 

* * *

 

 

“You look like a drowned rat,” Niles said.

Leo sent him a wet glare from the doorway. It was a very sour look. Niles mentally amended that Leo looked more like a drowned cat than a rodent.

“Thank you for your astute observation,” Leo said. He brushed back his wet hair with his hand and found several more fat drops of water dripping down his wrist in return.

He was well and truly soaked. Which wasn’t surprising, considering the thick waves of rainwater noisily slamming against the window.

Niles had already wandered into the smaller bathing chamber attached to the bedroom in search of a towel. “Didn’t make it inside before the rain began?”

“Obviously,” Leo said dryly. Then he sighed. “Sorry. I just really don’t want to be in these clothes.”

“Then strip,” Niles said simply, returning with two towels. “If you can’t make puddles in your own room, where can you?”

The remark seemed warranted, considering Leo was already standing in a rather large puddle of his own making in front of the bedroom door. There were doubtless additional puddles in the hallway.

Leo sighed again. “Fair enough.”

He stripped. Luckily, Leo hadn’t been wearing his heavier armor out today and his clothes weren’t particularly thick—though with Nohr’s drab weather, they probably should have been—but they still clung wetly to Leo’s skin and fell heavily to the floor as Leo discarded them. The last piece to go was Leo’s pants, which he finally kicked off with some effort.

Niles snapped the band of Leo’s underwear, earning an embarrassed yelp in reply. “Keeping these, milord?”

Leo’s cheeks were pink.

“I’m not _that_ wet,” Leo said, stubbornly ignoring yet another drop of water dripping onto his shoulder. Niles watched it fall. Leo pointed to one of the towels in Niles’s arms. “Would you hand me that? It’s gotten rather cold.”

Leo shivered—for effect, Niles would have thought, had he not felt the goosebumps that had risen on Leo’s skin as he handed over the towel. Niles frowned.

As Leo began drying himself off, Niles walked over to the edge of the bed and sat down. He patted the empty space between his legs, the other towel in hand.

“I’ll dry your hair if you’ll sit down here,” Niles offered.

Leo dragged his towel down his arm, drying most but not all of the raindrops clinging to his skin in one fell swoop. He bent down to quickly dry his legs as well, and some of his wet hair flopped into his face.

“You sound like Camilla,” Leo said, wiping the water out of his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Perhaps your sister has good ideas,” Niles said as Leo walked over. Leo wrapped the towel around himself for warmth before he sat between Niles’s legs. “Such as making sure you don’t catch a cold after you’ve been caught in the freezing rain.”

It wasn’t an exaggeration. When Leo sat between his legs on the bed, Niles felt the chill of Leo’s skin. Niles’s frown deepened.

Leo hummed but didn’t answer. Niles raised his own towel and plopped it onto Leo’s head, moving it back and forth to dry Leo’s hair.

For the next minute or so Niles worked without comment. He dried Leo’s hair as well as he could while trying not to jostle Leo too much. When he pulled the towel back, Niles found Leo’s hair mildly damp and standing on end.

Niles laughed and laid the used towel on Leo’s shoulders. Leo craned his neck around to look at him.

“What’s so funny?” Leo asked.

Niles wrapped his arms around Leo’s midsection and hooked his chin on Leo’s shoulder, pressing a kiss to Leo’s cheek.

“Nothing,” he said.

Leo ignored him and reached up to touch his head.

“I need a comb,” he said the moment he felt his frazzled hair. He moved to stand, but Niles’s loose grip around his midsection kept him from standing. “Niles.”

Niles raised his head slightly and kissed Leo’s temple, noting that Leo did not try to pull away again. Some of Leo’s frizzy hair tickled his nose. He couldn’t help but smile.

“Don’t you want to warm up a bit first?” he asked lowly.

“Looking like this?” Leo asked incredulously.

“That’s not a no.” Niles smirked. “You know I adore you no matter your appearance.”

He couldn’t quite see the prince’s face, but he was sure Leo rolled his eyes.

“Even when I look like a drowned rat?” Leo teased.

Niles reached up with two fingers and tilted Leo’s chin so that they held each other’s gaze.

When he’d first met Leo—when Leo had unknowingly granted Niles the incredible gift of both sparing and reinventing Niles’s life in the same moment—he hadn’t imagined ever sitting in Leo’s quarters so casually like this. Nor had he ever imagined loving Leo more than he had found himself doing those first weeks after.

And yet, here they were.

Leo looked less like a drowned rat or cat now. Now he looked more like himself. Like a very wet, disheveled version of himself, but Leo nonetheless.

“Even then,” Niles agreed. And then he leaned in for a kiss.

 

* * *

 

 

There was a book open on the table, but Leo couldn’t bring himself to focus on it anymore. Instead, his attention was drawn to the mess of blond hair sitting beside him.

Odin didn’t seem to notice when Leo pinched a lock of his hair between his fingers and gently pulled on it. Leo watched it first straighten in his grasp and then slowly curve back into place on Odin’s head when Leo let go. It wasn’t quite a curl, no. But the messy waves on Odin’s head were very much unlike the shorter spikes he usually donned.

“This might be the longest I’ve ever seen you grow out your hair,” Leo noted, drawing Odin’s attention away from his journal. Its pages were covered in the endless scrawl that was Odin’s handwriting, but Leo didn’t strain himself to read it. He’d learned his lesson about that nonsense the first time.

To Leo’s surprise, Odin groaned and leaned back in his chair. At the sound, Niles looked up from his seat in the window.

“Don’t remind me,” Odin said in a voice that was almost a whine. It was a very un-Odin like tone, and it had Leo quirking his eyebrow in interest. “I need a haircut _so_ badly.”

Leo eyed Odin’s head again. Leo’s hair had always been straight and flat, and he’d grown used to the wavy texture of Niles’s hair long ago. Odin’s hair had barely grown an inch more than its normal length, and yet…

“You never cease to surprise me,” Leo said without thinking.

Odin plopped his chin into the palm of his hand, elbow balanced on the table. They had both set their writing utensils by the wayside. “What do you mean?”

Leo shook his head.

“Nothing,” he said. “Your hair just looks so different than I’m used to.”

Odin had always kept it shorn short, after all. There was no reason he seemed to have grown it out now besides having simply not gotten around to cutting it yet. And yet only a few short weeks of inaction had seemed to radically transform his appearance.

Odin groaned under his breath again. He closed his eyes as though he were tired.

Leo took pity on him. “You look—”

“I know, I know,” Odin said. “I look like my mother.”

“—fine,” Leo finished. “I was going to say you look fine. You look like your mother?”

That comment had definitely piqued Niles’s interest. He didn’t say anything, but Leo could see Niles slowly making his way over to their table so he could listen in easier.

Odin’s eyes snapped open. For a moment, he looked surprised.

“Huh,” he said, blinking. He straightened up. “Sorry. I guess I forgot where I was for a moment.”

He didn’t offer more. Odin's past wasn’t something the man spoke of often—not at all, if he could get away with it—but Leo hazarded the question once more. “So you have your mother’s hair then?”

“Uh, yeah,” Odin said. Leo wasn’t going to press the issue, but Odin kept going. “My mother—Her hair was untamable. She always wore a cap and tied her hair back for that reason, but even so, it was always so…”

He trailed off.

“I see,” Leo said.

He tried to imagine Odin with as wild and messy a mane as he seemed to be describing. Odin was the most strange and surprising man Leo had ever had the good luck to meet, but still Leo struggled to really picture it.

Leo continued, “So you don’t like your hair then?”

He had never heard Odin comment about disliking his appearance ever before. Not that Odin had ever seemed to be much for vanity—not regarding appearance, at least.

“My parents blessed me with many gifts,” Odin said gravely. “And I am grateful for them.”

“But you do not consider your hair to be one of them,” Leo said, catching on.

Odin grimaced and reached up to touch his head. He still wore his circlet, but his messy hair—which Leo had now begun to recognize as a myriad of growing cowlicks—partially obscured the metal.

His mother’s hair, Odin had said.

Leo wondered what kind of woman Odin’s mother had been like.

“It’s not like I dislike it,” Odin said.

Leo looked at him, waiting for more.

“Well, there’s a reason I’ve always kept it short,” Odin said, for some reason looking somewhat abashed.

Niles, having finally crept up to their table, snuck up behind Odin and ruffled his hair. Somehow Odin’s hair looked even messier with Niles’s fingers tangled in it.

Leo smiled. They both ignored Odin’s protesting “Hey!”

He expected Niles to ask more about Odin’s mother or perhaps even Odin’s home, but what Niles said instead was, “It’s different.”

“Hm?”

Odin tipped his neck straight back and looked up. Niles leaned over the back of his chair and looked down, his own silver hair falling into his face. He had stopped ruffling Odin’s hair, but his hand still lingered in Odin’s space. Leo watched Niles trace the tip of Odin’s ear and gently thread his fingers through Odin’s hair without intent.

“I like it,” Niles clarified.

“Really?” Odin said. “Do you want me to grow it out then?”

He sounded neutral, but Leo still shrugged. “It’s your choice. You shouldn’t do something that makes you unhappy just for us.”

“So then you’d prefer if he grew it out too,” Niles said teasingly.

Leo purposely looked away.

Odin looked thoughtful. Then he righted himself so he wasn’t craning his neck any longer and winced. Tipping his head back so far for so long had probably hurt.

“You know,” Odin said. “I hadn’t thought about how long my hair had gotten until you pointed it out just now, Leo. It’s been years since I’ve let it get very long at all.” He looked towards the windowsill Niles had recently vacated. “Maybe it’s not as bad as I remember.”

“Maybe,” Niles echoed. Encouragingly, he added, “It wouldn’t hurt to try it out for a while, at least. You can always cut it off later.”

Odin tilted his head in acknowledgement. “I’ll consider it.”

Niles made a pleased sound. He left the space behind Odin’s chair to come around behind Leo’s instead. Niles dragged his fingers across Leo’s shoulders as he moved. He didn’t say anything, but Leo turned his head to peck at Nile’s wrist anyway.

Odin absently tugged at one of his wavier strands of hair again, still looking thoughtful.

**Author's Note:**

> Odin's hair getting wavy and sticking up like his mom's when it grows out to a certain length is a headcanon of mine.
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment below or hit me up on my [tumblr!](http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/) I get a lot of FE14 meta and fic related asks there, so feel free to browse through my "asks" or "fe14" tag for some extra stuff from me and your fellow readers you may not see over here. Or send in a question of your own if you had one! Thanks for reading!


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